Monthly Archives: May 2011

Like John I have been following the controversy over the Keystone pipeline from Canada with great interest, as it shows the desperation of the greens to oppose fossil fuels from any source for any reason. Even from an environmental point of view opposition to the pipeline makes little sense. I understand that the greens don’t like oil from Canadian tar sands, which are resource-intensive to extract. If Canada doesn’t sell »

In the scheme of things, this maybe isn’t a big deal. The World Press Photo contest is being held this year in Beirut. Photographers from around the world enter the competition. The show was supposed to run until June 1, but it had to be closed early: The exhibit, which showcased prizewinning photos from the 2011 World Press Photo contest opened on May 12 and was scheduled to run until »

Today, in what would be a major news story if the times we live in were not so bizarre, the Senate voted 97-0 against President Obama’s FY 2012 budget. Obama’s budget was such a joke that not a single Democrat was willing to support it. So one naturally asks: do the Democrats have something better to propose? The answer is: No. The Democratic Senate has not come up with a »

At the Heritage Foundation today, former federal judge and Attorney General Michael Mukasey let loose on Barack Obama’s and Eric Holder’s persecution of CIA professionals who followed the Justice Department’s legal advice, and now are facing criminal prosecution: [F]ormer Attorney General Michael Mukasey called Holder’s handling of matter “absolutely outrageous.” He said the cases involving CIA employees were settled by career prosecutors who determined the prosecutions should not go forward. »

This video, produced jointly by the Heritage Foundation and the Institute for Energy Research, exposes the fiction that the Obama administration has been anything other than a disaster for America’s energy industry. There is no conceivable explanation–no rational explanation, anyway–for Obama’s encouragement of Brazil’s drilling for new oil in the Atlantic, and promising to be Brazil’s best customer, at the same time that he is condemning energy workers here in »

Medicare is heading for collapse, as all well-informed citizens know. The question is what to do about it. Democrats welcome the collapse, and have incorporated it as part of their strategy to force socialized medicine on unwilling Americans. Republicans, for better or worse, are trying to save the Medicare program in something like its present form. Paul Ryan explains in this excellent video, released yesterday: Is saving Medicare a good »

Democrats are cheering Kathy Hochul’s victory in the special election in NY-26. Politico’s headline is typical: “Have Democrats cracked the code?” [A]fter two years of getting pummeled over spending and the size of government, Democrats now appear to have found a political weapon that’s capable of evening out the fight: Medicare. Hochul ran more or less exclusively on Mediscare, opposing Paul Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare, in effect, from a »

In August 2007 I was part of a small group including Andrew Breitbart, Jim Hoft, Jeff Emanuel, and Laurence Solov that met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Netanyahu’s Tel Aviv office. (Netanyahu was then head of the Likud Party in opposition to the Olmert government.) Our meeting had been arranged by Fern Oppenheim of America’s Voices in Israel. Fern led our group and snapped a picture of us with »

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a magnificent speech before a supremely warm joint session of Congress this afternoon. The text is accessible here and worth reading in its entirety. The educational value of the speech is incredibly high for those who are willing to listen and learn. It’s hard to pick a highlight, but here is one passage that makes a point we have made frequently here: “Of the »

We wrote here and here about Robert Greenwald, a failed filmmaker who is now paid to produce far-left “documentaries.” His current series is called “Koch Brothers Exposed.” It is a series of video attacks on Charles and David Koch and their company, Koch Enterprises. It is possible that someone, somewhere, has produced worse “documentaries” than these, but it isn’t likely. The current effort tries to tie Koch Enterprises to a »

I am pleased to see that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has named Dartmouth one of the seven best colleges for free speech. FIRE President Greg Lukianoff says Dartmouth is “one of our more controversial choices,” apparently because of “controversies about governance” in recent years. We are of course familiar with those. But Dartmouth abolished its speech code in 2005, and that, together with the absence of »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the AIPAC policy conference yesterday and previewed his speech to the joint session of Congress today. The text of his AIPAC speech is posted here. Part 1 of the video is below; part 2 is here. At the heart of Netanyahu’s speech is this set of propositions: It’s time to stop blaming Israel for all of the region’s problems. Let me stress one »

Joan Baez recorded Bob Dylan’s “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word” for Any Day Now, her 1968 double album of Dylan covers. It’s the highlight of the album. Baez owns that song. Dylan himself has never released a recording of it and I’m not aware of anyone other than Baez who has taken a stab at it. In the D.A. Pennebaker documentary Don’t Look Back, Baez can be heard singing »

Today is a milestone birthday of Minnesota native son Bob Dylan; he turns 70. He is a remarkable artist, self-invented, deep in the American grain. Attention must be paid. A few years back I visited Dylan’s old house at 2425 7th Avenue East in Hibbing. The house is a small two-story residence with a one-car attached garage on the side. The house is exactly two blocks from Hibbing High School, »

The Associated Press is excited that a former aide to Governor Sarah Palin has written a “tell-all” expose: A former member of SarahPalin’s inner circle has written a scathing tell-all, saying Mrs. Palin was ready to quit as governor months before she actually resigned and was eager to leave office when more lucrative opportunities came around. “In 2009 I had the sense if she made it to the White House »

This year’s National Magazine Award for Reporting was won by Harper’s magazine and Scott Horton, for an article that claimed three detainees were murdered by American troops at Guantanamo Bay. Unfortunately, the story turned out to be a lie. Not only that, but a lie that was peddled to a number of other left-wing news outlets that turned it down because it wasn’t plausible. Scott Horton’s named seemed familiar. Sure »

Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor addressed the AIPAC policy conference yesterday afternoon after President Obama’s speech in the morning. The text of his remarks is posted here; video of the speech is posted in two parts here. It’s a speech that combines a little family history with a consideration of the bond between Israel and the United States as well as the true requisites of peace between the Arabs »